Peter Pan -5yr- Sprinklers and Squirt Guns

For my son's 5th birthday, we had a Peter Pan Pirate Party.  For the invitations, I copied graphics of Peter Pan and Never Land onto a card on my computer.  The invitations said "come dressed for water fun."  We turned the backyard into Never Land (thank goodness it didn't rain).   

For the decorations, I hung a 13-foot Banner across the front of the house that said "Welcome to Never Land."  For flags, I printed out Skull & Crossbones clipart, glued them to black poster board, and taped the flags to 1/4" dowels.  I put up two flags in the yard and one on each pirate ship.  I borrowed four hanging paper trees from Vacation Bible School and hung them on the porch and in the backyard.  We had blue & green streamer wherever they would fit and the same colored helium balloons all over the inside of the house.  We also blew up 50 black balloons (that look like cannonballs) and strung them together with ribbon into four balloon streamers.  That was cool because you can hang up lots of regular balloons in one place because they are strung together. 

For the games:
1. "Walk the Plank" - the kids a great time playing on the Slip-n-Slide.

2. "The Lagoon" - we set up three little pools thought the backyard to splash in.

3. "Swordfights" - we blew up the long, twisty-type balloons and pretended they were swords.  Then everyone had a great time "fighting" and no one got hurt.  The swordfight ended when the last balloon popped!

4. "The Cannonball Fight" - we build pirate ships out of two empty refrigerator boxes that I got from Lowes.  We even used empty wrapping paper rolls as the masts and hung pirate flags (see "decorations above).  Then the kids got inside the two ships and hurled water balloons for cannons at each other.  Most loved the balloons so much that they didn't even make it inside the ships! 

Before the next game, all the children had to pick up the broken balloon pieces and throw them away!

5. Water gun fight - I bought a water gun for each child 6/88 cents at Walmart and a super soaker for the birthday boy.  Everyone had to try to get him and each other.

6. Break...We stopped after 45 minutes for cake & ice cream.  I decorated the main cake with Peter Pan and Capt. Hook cake toppers to look like the deck of a pirate ship, and a smaller cake decorated like a little dingy boat with three pirates escaping in it.  After cake and ice cream, we opened presents.  This gave the kids a break from the water and sun while my husband removed the slip-n-slide and brought out the sprinkler.

7. Next, we let the kids play in the sprinkler and pools, and more squirt guns.  My husband acted like Capt. Hook and was attacking the kids with the sprinkler.  They eventually figured out to disarm him by turning off the water!  We also let the ships get smashed (sink the ships) so we didn't have to break them down later!

8. The goody bags were made from brown lunch bags with Peter Pan graphics printed out and glued on.  I wrote each child's name on it and filled it with toys, no candy!  The bags were then closed with the string from a helium balloon that they could take home with them.

9. The last game was the Treasure Hunt that led to the goody bags.  I drew a map of the yard on grocery bag paper.  Then I wrote out seven clues rhyming clues.  After the kids figured out each location from the clue, we ran there and read the next clue.  Eventually the clues lead back to the deck where we placed the goody bags. 

At that time, I gave each child a black bandana tied like a pirate's scarf.    We timed the treasure hunt to be exactly when it was time for the party to end.  Thankfully everyone left on time, because my husband and I were exhausted!  We know the kids had a great time because we overheard one boy saying "wow, this is awesome!"  That made it all worth while.  Lastly, I used the same graphics for the invitation to write specific thank you cards for each child.  That saved a little on the handwriting, but my son had to sign his own name to each card.